Jay L Schollmeyer Local Chairman 1637 Portland, OR 97215 Email jay@jaysworks.com

Mr. Rose,

Mr. Rose, I am writing this because I have great concern as to the future of the Northern Lines.

• Scheduled maintenance has be postponed or canceled.
• My people read the allegations the Port of Tacoma are making about the tariffs to force shippers to use the Long Beach facility.
• Attached are charts of train starts east and west and number of crews we are at the lowest level in four years.
• When we look across the Columbia River we can see with our own eyes the Union Pacific is running twice the trains as us. The attached article from Traffic World {attached} confirms what we see.

Traffic World talks about "double-digit increases in forest products, vehicle and agricultural products traffic". For many years under the former BNRR that is what kept us going when the grain subsided.

 This is email I had received in response the BNSF's announcement of short hauling logs.

To: jay@jaysworks.com

Jay,

The trainmaster they quote is stationed at my terminal, Great Falls, MT. We got a surge of business at Judith Gap,

He has personally told me that he wishes they would go bankrupt, he now has an order out that the Gap can only be serviced during daylight hours--between him & the superintendent, they plan on running this venture out of business--- they had a conductor get hurt there & of course it couldn't have been the fault of the BNSF.

<Name Withheld>

 ----- Original Message -----

From: JLS UTU 1637
To: JD, Fitzgerald
Sent: Saturday, May 29, 1999 3:15 PM

What a concept What a concept Make money by servicing the customers

BNSF Today - May 28, 1999 Forest Products Unit Finds New Market for Sawlogs

When recent instability in the Asian market led to a downturn in export demand for sawlogs, BNSF stood to lose big. But rather than let a solid revenue base slip away, representatives of BNSF's Forest Products unit aggressively sought more stable, short-haul, domestic markets for the sawlogs. Thanks to the efforts of a number of marketing and operations people, not only did they create a new market, they also generated new business and more than doubled revenue in the process.

"The growth in the log business has not been without difficulties," says Mike Gruenke, BNSF account manager, Commercial Products in Spokane. "But with the dedication and hard work of our operations employees, these hurdles are being overcome to produce tremendous revenue growth." Stimson Lumber Company of Arden, Wash., was one company targeted by the team as a potential acquirer of the sawlogs. The facility was among several mills that were having difficulty receiving logs in quantities sufficient to maintain their lumber operations. The lack of a winter

Some 200 flat cars suitable for sawlogs were in storage in January. Today, 90 percent of those are back in revenue log service. freeze resulted in soft conditions that made it virtually impossible for lumber trucks to reach the wooded areas which have traditionally been the source of sawlogs for lumber mills.

Since January 1999, BNSF's sawlog revenues have nearly tripled, even more impressive considering they traditionally decline from the beginning of the year through early summer.

I am not an economist nor do I have a MBA I am only trying to see the big picture. I just do not understand how neglecting shippers by cutting yard jobs and reducing train speed to lower expenses for the quarter can have anything but a negative impact on return customers. One would think Wallstreet would notice that as operating expenses keep going down so does annual revenue.

I have been with the company for 25 years and I do not want to see the Northern lines just fade into a footnote in history.

JL Schollmeyer
Local Chairman 1637

cc: UTU members

Train starts taken from mileage reports
for the Vancouver/Pasco long pool
for the 10th, 20th and 30th of each month